


Hellscape

by AvaCelt



Series: Gintama Prompt Fills [20]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 03:58:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6454789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaCelt/pseuds/AvaCelt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gintoki's been haunted before, but this time, it's Tatsuma's pain instead of Shouyou's detached head that's crawling into his dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hellscape

**Author's Note:**

> Written for "Character Whump Fic Meme." Originally posted on my [Tumblr writing blog](http://victorsandvanquishers.tumblr.com/) and now being archived here for the A03 writing community.

When Gintoki finds him, he has one foot in the underworld and the other one's too broken to even be considered a part of the living. His wrists are tied behind his back and a filthy rag acts as a blindfold. Kagura yells a battle cry and charges against the space pirates, but Gintoki can't hear her or Shinpachi. His gathers Tatsuma in his arms, willing for him to breathe again, to give him just one sign that he's still with them and not on his way to Shouyou's home in the afterlife.

Tatsuma manages to survive, but at the cost of his eyes and his leg is half metal, half bone by the time the surgeries end. Gintoki himself peeled away the dirty blindfold to see that Tatsuma's eyes had glazed over because of the acid, and when Tatsuma refused to speak for an entire month after his rescue, it was Gintoki who sat vigil outside his room and told him stories of their friends who had come often to visit. They still did. Gintoki always knew it would take another tragedy for them to come together, just like it took several tragedies to tear them apart, but why did it have to be at the cost of Tatsuma's smile?

After a month, Mutsu and the rest of Kaientai take Tatsuma back to their ship and train him in Japanese Braille and other forms of communication while Gintoki drinks into the early hours of the mornings and takes up hard labor in the afternoons. The Yorozuya leave him alone at first, knowing that there's something a lot worse than pain swimming in his head, but the days go by, and Gintoki starts to talk. He talks about his dead father, a man with hair spun with threads of gold, a man he executed with his bare hands so that his friends could live. But at what cost? He'd tell Tsukuyou and Hinowa, or Otose, or Saigou, or Zura when the days were especially cold.

Six months from the day Tatsuma went back to the Kaientai, and news comes to Gintoki that he's been kidnapped for ransom again, and this time, no one stops Gintoki when he steals a government aircraft and flies into space for vengeance. By the time Takasugi and Zura storm in with their forces, the perpetrators are dead, Tatsuma is laughing softly, and Gintoki's bleeding to death with a smile on his face while he rests his head in Tatsuma's lap.

As per usual, Gintoki survives, but Tatsuma never gets his eyesight back, and the Kaientai bolster security. It ends up so that Gintoki eventually takes to space with the man who learns to laugh again, and that's when the Yorozuya parts ways, promising letters, monthly meetings, the end.

But it's not. Bloody swords and blindfolds haunt Gintoki's visions, and more often than not, he stares at Tatsuma's scarred and sleeping face instead of resting, and he writes letters to Kagura about how bad the pain in his heart is sometimes, and writes letters to Shinpachi about how much he hates himself. They come to him, once a month, comfort him, remind him that the hell he's been through will never disappear, but it's a hell he's survived this long and he can survive it for another hundred years.

One morning, Tatsuma feels his stubbly face and tells him that he loves him and that he wishes he could see his face again. Gintoki tells him that he's aged a hundred years and that the alcohol's slackened some of his features, but hey, his libido is still strong, so Tatsuma can still chase as many orgasms as he wants. That makes Tatsuma laugh loudly and clearly, and maybe, maybe a slight burden lifts from his shoulders, and he gathers the bushy-haired man in his arms and whispers two, maybe three prayers in his ears. He loves him; he does. He's loved Tatsuma for a long time now, and he supposes he'll love him for many more years, if his heart has any say in the matter.

 


End file.
